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Illinois Museum Of Natural History
The Illinois Museum of Natural History was founded as the Museum of the Illinois State Natural History Society at the Illinois Normal School, Bloomington, Illinois, in 1858. The museum operated until 1877 on the third floor of what became Illinois State University ''Old Main'' building (which was razed in 1958). Early history At the meeting of the Illinois State Teachers' Association in December, 1857 held at Decatur, Illinois, a paper was read by Cyrus Thomas of Carbondale, Jackson County suggesting the formation of a State Natural History Society and suggesting the State Normal School as its headquarters and the place for its museum. In accordance with this suggestion a meeting was called at the rooms of the Normal University in Bloomington on the 30th of June following when a plan of operations was agreed upon and officers elected of whom Professor J. B. Turner was elected president. Since that time two annual meetings were held and at each succeeding meeting the evidence of in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Museum Of The Illinois Natural History Society Bloomington Illinois
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these items available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. The largest museums are located in major cities throughout the world, while thousands of local museums exist in smaller cities, towns, and rural areas. Museums have varying aims, ranging from the conservation and documentation of their collection, serving researchers and specialists, to catering to the general public. The goal of serving researchers is not only scientific, but intended to serve the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, and children's museums. According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illinois State University
Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of the top ten largest producers of teachers in the US according to the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The university's athletic teams are members of the Missouri Valley Conference and the Missouri Valley Football Conference and are known as the "Redbirds," in reference to the state bird, the cardinal. History ISU was founded as a training school for teachers in 1857, the same year Illinois' first Board of Education was convened and two years after the Free School Act was passed by the state legislature. Among its supporters were judge and future Supreme Court Justice, David Davis and local businessman and land holder Jesse W. Fell whos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloomington, Illinois
Bloomington is a city and the county seat of McLean County, Illinois, United States. It is adjacent to the town of Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area. Bloomington is southwest of Chicago, and northeast of St. Louis. The 2020 Census showed the city had a population of 78,680, making it the 13th most populated city in Illinois, and the fifth-most populous city in the state outside the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Combined with Normal, the twin cities have a population of roughly 130,000. The Bloomington area is home to Illinois Wesleyan University and Illinois State University. It also serves as the headquarters for State Farm Insurance and Country Financial. Geography Bloomington is located at 40°29′03″N 88°59′37″W. The city is at an elevation of above sea level. According to the 2010 census, Bloomington has a total area of , of which (or 99.97%) is land and (or 0.03%) is water. Clim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur ( ) is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois, with a population of 70,522 as of the 2020 Census. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. Decatur is the seventeenth-most populous city in Illinois. The city is home of private Millikin University and public Richland Community College. Decatur has an economy based on industrial and agricultural commodity processing and production, including the North American headquarters of agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland, international agribusiness Tate & Lyle's largest corn-processing plant, and the designing and manufacturing facilities for Caterpillar Inc.'s wheel-tractor scrapers, compactors, large wheel loaders, mining class motor grader, off-highway trucks, and large mining trucks. History The city is named after War of 1812 naval hero Stephen Decatur. Decatur is an affiliate of the U.S. Main Street ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrus Thomas
Cyrus Thomas (July 27, 1825 – June 26, 1910) was an American ethnologist and entomologist prominent in the late 19th century and noted for his studies of the natural history of the American West. Biography Thomas was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, on July 27, 1825, and was of German and Irish descent. He was educated in village schools in the Kingsport area and an academy student at Jonesboro, Tennessee, as well as being self-educated. His mother hoped he would join the medical field, so he studied anatomy and physiology, but he was uninterested in medicine and took to the study of law. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1851 and practiced in Murphysboro. Between his study of medicine and law his father, Dr. John Logan, appointed him to a county seat to "take charge of some business". From 1851 to 1854 Thomas served as county clerk of Jackson County, Illinois. He later abandoned the practice of law, and in 1865 became superintendent of some Jackson County schoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbondale, Illinois
Carbondale is a city in Jackson and Williamson Counties, Illinois, United States, within the Southern Illinois region informally known as "Little Egypt". The city developed from 1853 because of the stimulation of railroad construction into the area. Today the major roadways of Illinois Route 13 and U.S. Route 51 intersect in the city. The city is southeast of St. Louis, on the northern edge of the Shawnee National Forest. Carbondale is the home of the main campus of Southern Illinois University (SIU). As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 25,083, making it the most populous city in Southern Illinois outside the St. Louis Metro-East region. History In August 1853, Daniel Harmon Brush, John Asgill Conner, and Dr. William Richart bought a parcel of land between two proposed railroad station sites ( Makanda and De Soto) and two county seats ( Murphysboro and Marion). Brush named Carbondale for the large deposit of coal in the area. The first train through Carbondale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria Metropolitan Area in Central Illinois, consisting of the counties of Fulton County, Illinois, Fulton, Marshall County, Illinois, Marshall, Peoria County, Illinois, Peoria, Stark County, Illinois, Stark, Tazewell County, Illinois, Tazewell, and Woodford County, Illinois, Woodford, which had a population of 402,391 in 2020. Established in 1691 by the French explorer Henri de Tonti, Peoria is the oldest permanent European settlement in Illinois according to the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. Originally known as Fort Clark, it received its current name when the Peoria County, County of Peoria organized in 1825. The city was named after the Peoria tribe, a member of the Illinois Confederation. On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln made A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Of Natural Sciences Of Drexel University
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading naturalists of the young American republic with an expressed mission of "the encouragement and cultivation of the sciences". It has sponsored expeditions, conducted original environmental and systematics research, and amassed natural history collections containing more than 17 million specimens. The Academy also organizes public exhibits and educational programs for both schools and the general public. History During the first decades of the United States, Philadelphia was the cultural capital and one of the country's commercial centers. Two of the city's institutions, the Library Company and the American Philosophical Society, were centers of enlightened thought and scientific inquiry. The increasing sophistication of the earth and life scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Edwards (educator)
Richard Edwards (December 23, 1822 – March 7, 1908) was a Welsh American educator from Ceredigion (Cardinganshire). Emigrating to the United States with his family when he was a child, Edwards studied at the State Normal School in Bridgewater, Massachusetts and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He then led a number of schools: the Boys' High School in Salem, Massachusetts (1853–1854); the State Normal School in Salem (1854–1857); the Normal School in St. Louis, Missouri (1857–1861); Illinois State Normal University (1862–1876); and Blackburn University(1891–1893). From 1887 to 1891, he served as the Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction. Early life Richard Edwards was born in Lledrod, Wales, on December 23, 1822. The son of Richard and Ann (Jones), Edwards was raised on the family farm until his family immigrated to the United States in 1833, settling in Ohio. In October 1844, Edwards took a teaching job, and after one term he enrolled in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Alfred Forbes
Stephen Alfred Forbes (May 29, 1844 – March 13, 1930) was the first chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey, a founder of aquatic ecosystem science and a dominant figure in the rise of American ecology. His publications are striking for their merger of extensive field observations with conceptual insights. Forbes believed that ecological knowledge was fundamental for human well being. Forbes was important to the development of ecological theory. He was acknowledged by the National Academy of Sciences as "the founder of the science of ecology in the United States". While already famous as an economic entomologist, Forbes undertook studies of massive fish mortality in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin. He showed the connection of algae blooms and lake physics to fish kills, and embarked on a remarkable research program into lake ecology and river ecology. Many of his insights about lake ecology were collected in an influential paper, "The Lake as a Microcosm". Notable for both conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for his 1869 geographic expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first official U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. Powell was appointed by US President James A. Garfield to serve as the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881–1894) and proposed, for development of the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions. Two years prior to his service as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Major Powell had become the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution where he supported linguistic and sociological research and publications. Biography Early life Powell was born in Mount Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almon Harris Thompson
Almon Harris Thompson (September 24, 1839 – July 31, 1906), also known as A. H. Thompson, was an American topographer, geologist, explorer, educator and Civil War veteran. Often called "The Professor" or simply "Prof", Thompson is perhaps best known for being second in command of John Wesley Powell's Second Geographical Expedition (1871–1875), a federally funded scientific expedition that retraced the route of Powell's original expedition in order to further explore and map the drainages and canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers in what is now southern Utah and northern Arizona. Thompson's diary of the expedition was originally published in the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1939. Through his work on the Powell expeditions and later as a geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey, he was responsible for naming many geographic locations in the Western United States. Thompson is also known for being a founding member of the National Geographic Society. Early life and education ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
